About the Book
The Worm Ouroboros [1922]
Research done by Paul Edmund Thomas (who wrote an introduction to the 1991 Dell edition) shows that Eddison started imagining the stories which would turn into The Worm Ouroboros at a very early age. An exercise book titled The Book of Drawings dated 1892 and created by Eddison is to be found at the Bodleian Library. In this book are 59 drawings in pencil, captioned by the author, containing many of the heroes and villains of the later work. Some of the drawings, such as The murder of Gallandus by Corsus and Lord Brandoch Daha challenging Lord Corund, depict events of Ouroboros.
As might be expected, significant differences exist between the ideas of a 10-year-old boy and the work of a 40-year-old man. Perhaps the most interesting change is the change in Lord Gro's character. In the drawings Lord Gro is a hero of skill and courage, while in the book he is a conflicted character, never able to pick a side and stick to it. Another curious change is that Goldry Bluszco is the main hero of the drawings, but off-stage in an enchanted prison for most of the novel.
Many people (including Tolkien) have wondered at and criticized Eddison's curious names for his characters (e.g. La Fireez, Fax Fay Faz), places and nations. According to Thomas, the answer appears to be that these names originated in the mind of a young boy, and Eddison could not, or would not, change them thirty years later when he wrote the stories down. The book was illustrated by Keith Henderson (1883 - 1982), who also illustrated books by Geoffrey Chaucer and W.H. Hudson
About the Author
Eric Rücker Eddison, 1882-1945
English author, best known for his early romance The Worm Ouroboros [1922] and his three volumes set in the imaginary world Zimiamvia, known as the Zimiamvian Trilogy: Mistress of Mistresses [1935], A Fish Dinner in Memison [1941], and The Mezentian Gate [1958].
These early works of high fantasy drew strong praise from J. R. R. Tolkien (see especially Letter 199 in the collected letters), C. S. Lewis (see the Tribute to E. R. Eddison in On Stories and Other Essays on Literature), and Ursula Le Guin (see the essay "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie" in The Language of the Night). Privately Tolkien found the underlying philosophy rebarbative, and clashed with Eddison at their sole meeting, while he in return thought Tolkien's views "soft". The books are written in a meticulously recreated Jacobean prose style, seeded throughout with fragments, often acknowledged but often frankly stolen, from his favorite authors and genres: Homer and Sappho, Shakespeare and Webster, Norse Saga and French medieval lyric.
